There are many people interested and fascinated with the paranormal these days. It is everywhere you look on TV and new alleged paranormal investigation teams are popping up every day on every corner. Our culture is paying more attention to paranormal concerns than ever before. People are also more curious than ever before, where in the past most of them had just enough fear of the unknown to avoid looking for trouble. There are some people who have studied liminal science, parapsychology and everything in between for ages, but now it seems that the paranormal has become a mainstream interest that spawned a new hobby, which is ghost hunting. It has also spawned a new type of obsession, with probing the spirit world. This craze has also created a lot of paranormal hypochondria.

Some people have a healthy interest in the unknown but others have carried that over, to a full blown self destructive obsession. I have talked to so many people that tell me, that they are terrified and are now being haunted by something, that they drew to them, while ghost hunting. These same people are miserable over the haunting, yet they cannot stop interacting with it and continuing to strengthen the bond it now has with them. They call me because their life has become unbearable and they want me to tell them what to do and how to stop the spirit from tormenting or hurting them. At the same time they want to continue to interact with it and keep ghost hunting, which sets them up for even more of what they cannot deal with.

Amazingly enough most of the people who become obsessed with the paranormal are the same ones that are totally afraid of it. That same fear may be what draws them to it for the rush that they get from it. These are the same people, who have the right kind of energy and personality that are exactly what a parasitic or predatory entity looks for. It is just disastrous for this kind of person to get involved with the paranormal and spirit seeking. Somehow it is these same people that are drawn into it and hooked by some kind of compulsion, possibly even channeled from a predatory entity, to keep interacting with their tormentors. That is a no win situation and a hopeless one too. This is one form of paranormal obsession. It is also a very dangerous one. I have spent years trying to warn people and dissuade them from messing with the paranormal for this reason.

When people become obsessed with the very thing that is hurting them or destroying their lives then things usually go to a very bad end. Trying to help someone who has reached this stage of obsession is very frustrating and more or less a fruitless endeavor. No one can help someone who does this, as they are always continuing to feed, and compound the problem themselves, by their inability to stop doing exactly what got them into the mess in the first place. At this point the person may need to seek mental as well as paranormal help.

I have seen this happen so much when people become involved with personal paranormal exploration. I have tried to help some of them but they always go out and find another predatory spirit in their obsession to probe into the unknown. They find these spirits at cemeteries, paid ghost hunts and at alleged haunted locations. When all else fails, they even draw them to their own home, by doing EVP experimentation there. Later on, when once again the spirit becomes an attachment and is tearing their lives apart, they again will seek out someone to help them, but the cycle just goes on and on. Working in the paranormal field is not for everyone, and most of the people who are out there seeking the spirit world right now have the wrong agenda for doing so. But let’s look a bit more at paranormal obsession…

Paranormal obsession is easy to spot if you observe people. People who have this kind of obsession are totally immersed in it; they lose other interests and just dive headlong into a full time occupation with paranormal stuff. They will spend countless hours and tons of money, in pursuit of their obsession. They no longer watch anything on TV or in the movies that are not paranormal related. They may pull away from family and friends who do not share their obsession. Eventually if they do not have the real paranormal experience that they seek so desperately, they may create it in their own minds. They will find a ghost in every photo, and perceive every event as something haunt related. They will encourage their friends to let them investigate their home for ghosts if even one thing happens that they can possibly relate to being “maybe” paranormal. Many paranormally obsessed folks also come to think that they are spirit sensitives and convince themselves of such. This makes for a great come back to those rational folks, who may not be seeing, what they are seeing around every corner. They will seek out psychics and mediums and anyone that they think can give them some supernatural message. Paranormal obsession is like any other addiction. The obsessed person will run to every ghost hunt, every haunted venue, and every paranormal conference or lecture, and begin to develop a new way of perceiving the world, that is skewed through their desire to have paranormal experiences. Those that are paranormally obsessed either want to find something paranormal in everything, perceiving everything as paranormal out of their fear or pre-occupation with the phenomenon.

For example the average person wakes up from a dream that was frightening or upsetting, they just chalk it up to an unpleasant dream and it ends there. When a person who is obsessed with the paranormal has this same type of dream, they often attribute it to a ghost or some kind of paranormal dreamscape experience. The average person hears a noise in the house, and shrugs it off, where the obsessed person thinks it is a spirit making noises in the home. One person may see a shadow and shrug it off as a trick of the light or the eye, the obsessed person is pulling out the sage and the tape recorder or camera. Paranormal obsession is like any other addiction. The obsessed person will buy a ticket to every ghost hunt, and seek out every haunted venue and begin to develop a new way of perceiving the world that is skewed through their desire to have paranormal experiences.

People who are bored and have a lot of time on their hands are more prone to becoming paranormally obsessed. They find it exciting and it brings them both a niche for themselves and something to focus on. It brings them into contact with other people with the same interest and therefore serves as a social outlet to interact with people and make friends. Somewhere along the line some people develop this extreme and unhealthy obsession with all things paranormal and then at that point everything becomes paranormal in their view. Everything revolves around the paranormal and they neglect other areas of their lives and even their health. They may have health issues but assume them to be spirit attacks rather than just following the diagnosis or advice of the doctor. I talk to people everyday who think that their physical illnesses are the result of spirit attack. People also attribute their run of bad luck to spirit interference as well. I knew an investigator who lost their job the day after an investigation and attributed that to the actions of an angry spirit that she thought she encountered the night before. Many people were losing their jobs at that time due to the economy and companies that were forced to downsize. I doubt very seriously that the loss of her job was the work of a ghost.

There is another kind of disorder that comes from all of this paranormal interest and the current craze. That is paranormal hypochondria. The paranormal hypochondriac assumes that everything that happens to them is paranormal related. They often think they have ghosts in their home, aliens in the backyard who they believe abducted them, and they buy into every conceivable myth, conspiracy theory and crypto creature ever thought of. I have known many of these people as they contact paranormal investigators and attend paranormal events in droves. When a person who is a paranormal hypochondriac, calls on one of the new and overly eager ghost hunting teams to come and check out their supposed ghost, then that paranormal team feeds this person’s obsession and makes matters worse. Whatever they find or think they found will just add more fuel to the fire of the client’s paranormal pre-occupation and sometimes the fear that goes with it. This happens all the time now.

After so many years of being in this field, I can tell a lot about someone even on the phone after talking for awhile, and spot someone who is having this paranormal hypochondriac or paranormal obsession. I also at times get calls from people who are mentally ill and it is apparent during the conversation that they need mental help not paranormal help. I feel that to encourage these folks by doing any investigations in their home would be more harmful than helpful and I judge which cases I take, with the client’s best interest in mind. I want to help people but above all I want to do no harm. I will not take on a case where I feel there is mental illness, emotional instability or obsession at work there. To do so would only encourage an already bad situation and an already very troubled person.

If you or someone you know is paranormally obsessed and having real spirit problems as the result of their ghost hunting obsession and still refuses to stop, then they need help. The kind of help that we seek for any addiction or obsession that leads us to ruin and ill health. Paranormal obsession like any other obsession can lead to mental illness. For some reason I have seen more women than men with this obsession. It does strike men too, but women seem to be more susceptible to it for whatever reason. People who have this kind of paranormal obsession will become depressed or extremely emotional at times. They will be calling you and crying about the ghost that is torturing them one night and then setting up their equipment to interact with that same ghost the next day. This obsession can lead to serious and dangerous events and even result in the person afflicted committing suicide.